We hold a Native Plant Seed and Cutting Exchange every other month at the Peninsula Conservation Center in Palo Alto. This free event provides an opportunity to share and receive both seeds and cuttings of native plants. Browse the diverse offerings, ranging from easy-to-grow to hard-to-find, and go home with seeds and cuttings of new native plants! We will provide coin envelopes for seeds but bring containers to carry cuttings home.
If you have native plant material from your own garden to share, please bring some. Label your cuttings to make them easy to browse – some gardeners attach helpful hints about growing; others display photos of plants in bloom. You may find it convenient to use calscape.org for this – there is a link on each plant’s information page to make a printable sign for most native species and cultivars.
If you bring cuttings, keep them cool and moist in a bucket of water. Don’t have native plant material to share? No problem, as there is usually enough for all.
Check our calendar for the date of the next Exchange. This event is organized by the CNPS SCV Wildflower Ambassadors, and they are always there to answer questions and distribute free packets of prepackaged wildflower seeds.
Location: Peninsula Conservation Center, 3921 East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA, 94303
Propagating Native Plants at Home, a talk by Stanley Gu, This talk shares a methods used to propagate plants at the Grassroots Ecology nursery for their restoration projects as well as ways to adapt these techniques for your home. Includes great examples of home propagation setups. The recording is missing some sections of the talk. Slides available here.
Seed Propagation of Native California Plants, Dara E. Emery, 2021. The most complete resource for the propagation of California native plants by seed. Available from the CNPS SCV online store.
Propagation Protocol Database, from the USDA Forest Service. The Native Plant Network is devoted to the sharing of information on how to propagate native plants of North America (US, Canada, Mexico and the Pacific Islands). Excellent searchable database.
San Diego Chapter's Seed Germination tips, a collection of informative articles on germinating a variety of plants from seeds written by members of the San Diego chapter.
Winter Planting Extravaganza
Native plants bring beauty and habitat value to your garden, and winter is the best time to plant natives. Our Winter Planting Extravaganza includes two online plant sales and a Seed and Cutting Exchange!
Online Plant Sales
Order pickup for both of these plant sales will be at the Peninsula Conservation Center on Sunday, January 21, 2024 before and during the Seed and Cutting Exchange.
CNPS SCV Nursery:Shop online starting at 9am on Monday, January 15. Orders will close at midnight on January 16 or when all of our pickup slots have been filled - whichever comes first.
Seed and Cutting Exchange - Sunday, January 21, 2024
Are you a gardener on a budget? Do you like growing things "from scratch"? This is your opportunity to share and receive seeds and cuttings of native plants. The event will be held at the Peninsula Conservation Center, 3921 East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto.
Did you know that California has more native plant species than any other state in the nation? To honor California’s incredible plant life, the California State Legislature designated the third week of April to be California Native Plant Week. Celebrate with our Chapter at one of the many activities we've scheduled during this special week.
Dana Center at Hidden Villa 26870 Moody Road Los Altos Hills, CA 94022
Join us for a celebration of our Chapter's 50th Anniversary and a Fall Plant Sale. This free family–friendly event will have activities for all. No tickets required for entry to the event, but free parking for the event (does not include access to Hidden Villa's hiking trails and farm animals) must be reserved in advance. No free parking without an advance reservation -- parking on the day of the event is $10 and includes access to Hidden Villa's hiking trails and farm animals. Current Chapter members will receive a free commemorative pin at the event.
October 19, 2024, 10:00 am - 3:00 pm: Pick up online purchased plants
at the Dana Center at Hidden Villa, 26870 Moody Road Los Altos Hills. You'll have an opportunity to buy a limited selection of plants from both our nursery and the Grassroots Ecology Nursery as well as participate in other fun activities.
CNPS SCV Nursery
Shop online from October 11 to 14:https://california-native-plant-society-santa-clara-valley-chapter.square.site/ and schedule a time to pick your plants up on October 19. Only select plants (manzanitas and ceanothus along with some others) will be available for purchase outside the nursery during the event. The CNPS SCV Nursery will not be open for sales during the event.
Grassroots Ecology Nursery
The Grassroots Ecology Nursery will bring plants for in-person shopping at the event (no preorders). A list of available plants will be posted on their website at https://www.grassrootsecology.org/nursery-sales a few days before October 19.
Collectors are an essential part of every wildflower show; without them, and the plants they gather, there would be no show.
A Day in the Life
Collectors begin early in the day gathering all of the items they will need and loading them into their vehicles: bottles, buckets, clippers, loppers, extra water, newspaper or other material to wrap around collected specimens, a log for tracking the items collected, any required collecting permits, lunch, and clothing appropriate for whatever weather the day might bring.
Some days are hot, some are cold, and some are windy and wet, challenging even the hardiest collectors. Since flowers are best viewed in the day or two immediately after collection, there is little opportunity to wait for better weather. Collectors need sharp eyes, plant identification skills and a good memory to spot their target plants as they travel specific routes looking for flowers in bloom, collecting one or two samples of each to display at the show. They often work in groups of two or three.
Back at the Show
Once back at the show location, each specimen's identification is checked. Any specimens that cannot be identified in the field must be keyed to determine the correct identification, work often done by the same individuals who did the collecting.
After identification is verified, the plant samples are placed in a display bottle and handed off to a runner, who will pull the corresponding species card and place the specimen in the appropriate location based on either the correct plant family or the relevant plant community. In the absence of runners, some collectors pull their own cards and place their specimens in the correct locations.
Collectors are among the last to leave the show location on the day prior to the event and may never be seen by those who attend the show. In a sense, they are like Santa Claus and his elves, toiling behind the scenes to deliver beautiful gifts to a public they may never meet.
Thanks to our Collectors!
Wildflower Show - 2024
Bringing Biodiversity Home
Please join us on Saturday, April 27, 2024 from 9:30 am - 4 pm for our 49th Wildflower Show at West Valley College. This family-friendly event features hundreds of native wildflowers and plants on display as well as a variety of activities for all ages. The event and parking are all free to the public. Our keynote speaker this year is Bart O'Brien with a talk on Creating Habitat and Beauty in your Garden with Native Plants.
The show will feature hundreds of species of wildflowers and native plants from Santa Clara, San Mateo and surrounding counties gathered and identified by our volunteer collectors. In addition to local plants, we will have a section featuring flowers from native plant gardens in our Chapter.
The Santa Clara Valley Chapter of CNPS is celebrating California Native Plant Week with a Wildflower Festival on Saturday, April 23. The event will be held at the Dana Center at Hidden Villa in Los Altos Hills, from 10 am to 3 pm. This event replaces our previously scheduled Wildflower Show at West Valley College on the same date.
We welcome the whole family with fun outdoor activities and an exhibit of wildflowers. Experts will be on site to describe different samples and answer questions. You can also stop by our wildflower seed table to take home some free seeds to sow this fall/winter. This will create spring beauty in your own garden – which can also feed nectar to butterflies, act as host plants for caterpillars, and provide essential habitat for native bees and insects.
Next Seed & Cutting Exchange: September 22, 2024 1pm - 3pm
Grassroots Ecology's Nursery: Place your orders here: 
October 8, 2022, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Collectors are an essential part of every wildflower show; without them, and the plants they gather, there would be no show. 
Collectors begin early in the day gathering all of the items they will need and loading them into their vehicles: bottles, buckets, clippers, loppers, extra water, newspaper or other material to wrap around collected specimens, a log for tracking the items collected, any required collecting permits, lunch, and clothing appropriate for whatever weather the day might bring.
Some days are hot, some are cold, and some are windy and wet, challenging even the hardiest collectors. 
After identification is verified, the plant samples are placed in a display bottle and handed off to a runner, who will pull the corresponding species card and place the specimen in the appropriate location based on either the correct plant family or the relevant plant community. In the absence of runners, some collectors pull their own cards and place their specimens in the correct locations. 
Saturday, April 23th, 2022 from 10:00 AM to 3 PM
